Brooklyn Thieves Rob Store of Cash and (Winning) Lotto Tickets

Two thieves who robbed a Brooklyn grocery must have thought it was really their lucky night when three lotto tickets they stole – in addition to cigarettes and cash – turned out to be winners.

On May 25, two black males wearing stocking masks entered a grocery store at 17th Ave. and 86th Street at 4:42 a.m. The men “simulated a firearm,” according to NYPD, and forced a store worker to the ground, before making off with $5,000 in cash, four packs of cigarettes, and several scratch-off lottery tickets. The worker was not injured.

A police investigation determined that three of the stolen lottery tickets were winners. The lotto tickets were claimed later the same day. Police obtained surveillance video of the locations where the tickets were claimed: Two tickets totaling $50 were claimed by an unidentified black man at a store on Cortelyou Road and East 21st Street in Brooklyn, and one ticket worth $50 was claimed by an unidentified dark-skinned woman, possibly Hispanic or Italian, at 9th Avenue and West 29th Street in Manhattan.

Police are looking for the people who claimed the tickets, as they may be connected to or associated with the thieves.

The two thieves – who are believed to have robbed another store, at 17th Ave. and 66th Street, earlier in May – are described only as a black male, 5’9″ with a medium build and in his thirties; and a black male, 5’11” with a heavyset build and in his thirties.